Joe Biden in Warsaw. An event that the Poles welcomed and awaited as Catholics await the words of the Pontiff in St. Peter’s Square. Indeed, the speech delivered by President Biden, in the courtyard of the Royal Castle, was perceived by the children of the Great Martyr as a brake on the advance of the Anti-Christ.
Because this is precisely what the inhabitants of the former Soviet satellite see in Vladimir Putin ‘s glassy eyes : absolute evil. Biden’s visit to the Polish capital was preceded by an escalation of declarations and agreements (for now only verbal) that have introduced great hopes into national sentiment.
On Thursday, during the summit of Western leaders held at the European Council, the American president issued a categorical warning to the Kremlin: Putin’s biggest mistake was underestimating the unity of the West.
According to Biden, Russia has tried to destroy NATO from the very beginning, as she would rather face thirty separate countries than thirty allied countries with the United States. Putin’s intolerance towards any compromise formula has led the Euro-Atlantic axis to sign an exceptional energy partnership, so that member states are able to give up Russian fossil fuels.
In the weeks following the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Poland has always interpreted the path of intransigence as the only path to hinder the imperialist spirit of the new tsar and his “special operation” dropped on Ukrainian cities, razed to the ground from bombing and missiles.
In fact, it is impossible to try to fully understand the exquisitely emotional reactions that Biden’s speech extrapolated and aroused from the common sense of this nation, without knowing the unanimous attitude that fertilized and prepared the ground for his arrival in Warsaw.
On March 24, Foreign Minister Zbigniew Raulisted and analyzed the fundamental points that should characterize the Atlantic counter-offensive against Russia, one of the powers that wrote the United Nations Charter, the Final Act of the 1975 Conference on Security in Europe signed in Helsinki and the Paris Charter for a new Europe of 1990, and which today is trampling on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
First of all – explains Rau – the only way in which the international community can influence the calculations of the Kremlin is to arm Ukraine to the teeth, avoiding unconditional surrender of the resisters so longed for by Putin.
The United States should embark on a process of swift rearmament of its allies and partners, providing them with support in the form of a new loan program similar to that of the Second World War. In addition, “NATO should immediately increase its military presence on its eastern flank in Europe; the costs of this war must be devastating for Russia, and not just financially, because if in the past we brought war criminals to justice after the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, today we cannot allow the perpetrators of the atrocities orders in Ukraine go unpunished. Finally, the international community must prepare a plan for the reconstruction of Kiev. We have billions of dollars in assets confiscated from the Russian oligarchs who supported and financed Putin’s aggressive policies. Our guiding star must be Ukraine’s entry into a united, free and hopefully peaceful Europe ”.
In short, Polish public opinion has been channeled towards a line of firmness with no ifs and buts. Hard and pure. Thus, the “do not be afraid” declaimed by Biden in his opening speech recalled, among the audience gathered at the entrance of the old city, not only the figure of John Paul II , but the only weapon that first allowed the Armia Krajowa to free the capital from the Nazi occupation and after Solidarity to dismantle the Soviet apparatus in Poland: the strength of faith. At one time, the old European diplomacy was convinced that the Poles acted by symbols and not by facts, yesterday Biden’s words gave value to this preconception.
At 6 pm all the highest authorities of the nation were present: President Andrzej Duda, the President of the Sejm Elzbieta Witek , the President of the Senate Tomasz Grodzki , the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki , the Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak , the Minister of Foreign Affairs Zbigniew Rau, as well as the former President Aleksander Kwasniewski and the Mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski .
In addition, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba , Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov and Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Andriy Deszczyca , as well as Belarusian democratic opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya .
Biden, reserving a message also for Lech Walesa , only evokes the heroic Polish resistance during the Soviet repression, as if to create a historical and sentimental connection between the fathers of liberal democracy in Poland and the fighters of Kiev, Mariupol and Kharkiv who they take up their guns to build a democratic system “based on the defense of the rule of law, free and fair elections, freedom of expression and opinion”.
On this, the democratic and tireless President continues to cite the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and the contemporary Poznan uprising, unmasks Putin’s false claims of ethnic solidarity and his relentless desire to dismiss President Zelensky,Jewish and democratically elected; defends NATO and its defensive nature while pinning down the response the Kremlin addressed to Washington during mediation attempts: ultimatums, lies, internal disinformation processes and external threats, after reducing the presence of 180,000 soldiers along the border as ” ordinary military training “.
Biden reiterates the American administration’s commitment to providing Ukrainians with military, humanitarian and economic support, to tighten sanctions against Moscow, to strengthen NATO’s frontline defenses, to honor Article 5. In short, fulfills the requests made by Rau in the days before his arrival.
A speech that, however, touches upon the contradictions inherent in the Polish political system, albeit to a lesser extent, when it dusts off Putin’s attacks on European values: the rule of law, individual rights, the separation of powers. The same accusations that Brussels made against the executive of Morawiecki in the imploding of the Strajk Kobiet, in the promulgation of the judicial reform wanted by Ziobro and of the anti-abortion laws.
But the opposition does not catch the ball. Indeed, it conforms to Mateusz Morawiecki’s conclusions: Putin is the only enemy who counts to overthrow and replace. As in the hot days of the Solidarity trade union protests, the political forces unite around the fire of the Catholic spirit against the invader.
If the journalists of Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita expected a Kenyan reinterpretation of “Ich bin ein Berliner”, Biden unwittingly reproduced the content of “He was told …”, the pamphlet that Zygmunt Bauman offered to Warsaw in 1968.
From those pages , the Poles respond to Putinian propaganda and confirm Biden’s gratitude towards the generous welcome given to Ukrainian refugees:
“Despite the efforts of censorship and police batons, despite the long brainwashing and the ignoble campaign of slander, there was no lack of once again the contribution of Polish thought to the efforts to which the whole world is committed to bring civilization to the next, higher level of development ”.
I don’t think best synthesis can be found.
